VALLUVAR AND KURAL
01. INTRODUCTION
Thiruvalluvar is one of the greatest thinkers and poet sages of Tamil Nadu. Though he lived two millennia ago, he does not seem to have died. He is a contemporaneous presence in the Tamil country, through his Thirukkural – a literary work, influencing people’s thought and urging them to bring their conduct into greater conformity with the high ideals, he sets before them. That’s why Rev. Dr. G.U. Pope calls him, “The Bard of the Universal Man”, while Albert Schweitzer declares, “There hardly exists in the Literature of the world a collection of maxims in which we find such lofty wisdom”.
02. THE MEANING OF THE TERMS
Turning to the meanings of the word “Thirukkural”, “Thiru” means “holy” and “Kural” mean “anything short”. So also “Thiru” is a prefix added to the poet Valluvar, hence Thiruvalluvar. Kural is a couplet in nature that the first line has four metric feet and the second line three. This kind of couplet is called “Kural Venba” in Tamil. “Venba”, is a metric piece consisting of four lines. It is the most difficult form in which to compose poetry. The Kural, which is a dwarfed Venba – a couplet, puts even greater restraints upon its practitioners.
03. ARCHITECHCTONICS OF THE KURAL
It is fascinating to study the architectonics of the Kural, which consists of 133 chapters of 10 Kurals each. These 133 chapters themselves are classified under three broad headings. They are: Aratthuppal consists of 38 chapters (380 Kurals) which deals with the themes like, right, duty, virtue, education, family…etc. Porutppal consists of 70 chapters (700 Kurals), talks about wealth, art of government, trade, sovereignty, social ethics…etc. Inbatthuppal is related to love consisting of 25 chapters (250 Kurals). It is divided into subsections, “Kalavial” and “Karpial”. Kalavial refers to a marital union, unaccompanied by any ritual or sacrament and proceeded by premarital love. Karpial refers to marital love. Unlike the “Kama Sastras”, which deal with an objective and scientific analysis of sex and sexual poses, Inbathuppal of Valluvar like the “Song and Solomon” contains highly poetic exposition of the love between man and woman, in its multitudinous aspects, which are set in different dramatic, and lyrical situations.
04. THE AGE OF VALLUVAR
What kind of Tamil country is it, which gave Valluvar his catholicity and universality of outlook, his wisdom, inspiration and language? A general understanding to his times can be viewed here. It is difficult to fix with any degree of precision, the age of Valluvar. In the world of Tamil Scholarship, it has been a theme of widely differing speculation. Therefore a cautious and wide-ranging estimate may be acceptable, saying he must have lived at some time between the 3rd century b.c.e. and the 1st century b.c.e. (cf. Dr. M. Rajamanickam, History of Tamil Language and Literature, p. 123.)
05. THE PULSE OF HIS TIME
There are also reasons to believe that he lived between 3rd century b.c.e. and 1st century b.c.e and the pulse of his times through historical and literary evidences. Hence the time of Valluvar will throw light on his psyche. During this period, the Tamil Dynasties of Cheran, Cholan, and Pandyan, ruled over different part of South India, had wide international contacts with countries ranging from Egypt, Greece, and Rome in the West, Burma, Malaysia and China in the East, Ceylon in the south, and the Himalayan Kingdoms in the North. A representative of the Pandyan King attended the coronation of Emperor Augustus in Rome, as mentioned by Strabo, a Greek who wrote “Geography” in the 1st century b.c.e. According to Paul Pelliot, there is evidence in Chinese Literature of diplomatic relations between the South Indian coasts and the Chinese Empire, as early as the 2nd century b.c.e. A Chinese writer, PanKou, who lived at the end of the 1st century b.c.e., mentions the fact that the Cholan King sent embassies to China in the time of Emperor Hua (cf. K M PANIKKAR, India and China, pp. 17-19). Karikala Cholan, a king of Cholan Dynasty, invaded SriLanka, and brought Gajabahu, the Sinhalese prince, as a prisoner along with 1200 Sinhalese and engaged the prisoners in the construction of a dam across the River Cauvery.
There existed the III Tamil Sangam a Literary Academy with 49 members, which sat in Madurai, the capital of the Pandian Kingdom. This academy enjoyed prestige through out the Tamil World, that no new literary production would pass muster, unless it received the imprimatur of its approval. There was also a large body of “Sangam Poetry” which preceded Valluvar’s Kural. Tholkappiam a well-known Tamil Grammer Book had been produced in the 3rd century b.c.e., and there was “Agathiyam” another Book of Grammer, which had been compiled even earlier. All these multifaceted evidences might answer the question of catholic and universal outlook of Valluvar.
06. TRANSLATIONS
Thirukkural is the most translated of the Tamil Literary Works. Dr. Graul, a great German Scholar learnt Tamil, in order to enjoy the Kural in the original and then proceed to translate it into German in 1854, and into Latin in 1856. Rev. Fr. Beschi S.J., an Italian missionary who worked in the Madurai Mission, translated it into Latin in 1730. M. Ariel, a great French Savant, translated some fragments of the Kural into French in 1848. He also referred to an earlier French translation of the Kural, made by an unknown author, in 1730, which was kept in the “Bibliotheque National of France”. Rev. Dr. G. U. Pope, a British translated the Kural into English in 1886.
It is therefore no surprise, that Thirukkural is the most translated of the Tamil Works. It has been translated into Latin, German, French, Dutch, Finnish, Polish, Russian, Chinese Fiji, Malay, and Burmese. And also into the Indian languages such as Sanskrit, Urdu, Marathi, Bengali, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam. There are in fact as many as 82 translations of the Thirukkural in foreign Languages. The thoughts of Valluvar have dominated the intellectual scene of the Tamils, forever to millennia. The Tamil people regard Thirukkural as “Tamil Vedem”. Thus Kural has so deeply penetrated the thinking of Tamils, that even unlettered Tamils quote the Kural.
07. TRIBUTES TO KURAL
Rev. Dr. G.U. Pope has compared the Kural to Propertius Martial and to the Latin elegiac verse. M. Ariel in a letter to Burnouf published in the Journal Asiatique of November–December 1848, issue speaks of Kural as “a masterpiece of Tamil Literature, one of the highest and purest expressions of human thought”.
The Tamil poetess Avayar, a contemporary of Valluvar says:
Valluvar bores an atom
Pours the seven seas into its cavity
And cutting the atom
Offers its cross – section to us
In the shape of the Kural
Mankudi Maruthanar, a Tamil poet in him poem says:
The Kural is a scripture
Which is easy to recite
But difficult to comprehend
The more it is reflected upon men
Without evil
The more it would melt their hearts
Vannkkam Sathanar, yet another Tamil poet says:
If we examine Sanskrit and Tamil
It would be difficult to judge
Which is greater of the two
For Sanskrit possesses the Veda and
Tamil possesses the Thirukkural of Valluvar
08. GLIMPSES OF KURAL
8.1 ON GOD
Valluvar begins his Kural in God. As a Linguist, he knows that the sound ‘a’ is the substratum of all other sounds. So he uses an uncommon simile to depict the omni competent God.
All word sounds have their genesis in the sound “a” - like wise
The whole of the world has its genesis in God (Kural 1).
8.2 ON PURITY OF MEANS
Valluvar did not think that pure end could be achieved by impure means. So he says in Kural 754:
Wealth attained by proper means
And without foul practice
Will generate virtue as well as joy.
8.3 ON WORD
Valluvar has emphasized the precise and discriminating use of words, as a means of spiritual illumination. In the chapter on “Eloquence” he says:
Utter not a word
Without making sure
There is no other word to beat it (Kural 645).
He calls upon speakers to cultivate a reverence for words. In Kural 644, 650 he makes a declaration of his faith.
There is no greater virtue
And indeed, no greater wealth
Than the ability to use words
With the fullest cognizance of their power.
Men, who know not
To communicate their learning to their listeners
Are like flowers, spread not their perfume
Even after they blossom.
8.4 ON AGRICULTURE
Valluvar lauds agriculture not only as the noblest of the professions, but also as the most fruitful and independent way of life.
The Earth, though rotating, is still behind the plough
Therefore, though toilsome
Agriculture is the noblest toil (Kural 1031).
The ploughmen are
The linchpin of the world
For they give support to all others
Who can’t till the soil (Kural 1032).
8.5 ON LEARNING
According to him, the entire purpose of learning is to make a person live better. Hence he discards any learning as useless when it is unconnected with this ideal, and irrelevant to life.
Learn with utter clarity
Whatever has to be learnt
After learning, conduct yourself
According to what you have, learnt (Kural 391).
He visualizes the necessity of education and prophesizes that learning dignifies human being. Therefore it is very essential as eyes to human being.
Those who are said to have eyes
Are the learned?
But the unlearned have merely two sores
Upon their faces (Kural 393).
He has already foreseen two millennia ago, the modern theory of education – knowledge increases by constant learning. He brings out this wisdom by observing the sandy spring that spouts the more when it is drawn:
The more you delve into the sandy spring
The more its water spouts
Likewise the more men study
The more their knowledge spouts (Kural 396).
8.6 ON LOVE
The Divine Poet places love as the top most of all the virtues. For him, love is the highest manifestation of the human spirit. And so, he urges every one, to live in accordance with love, which is the primary virtue accessible to man. He picks up peculiar imageries to convey this message forcefully:
Existence without love
Is like, sprouting of a dead tree
In the barren dry land (Kural 78).
Existence has its root
In the nature of love
And those who have no love
Are bony frame works clad with skin (Kural 80).
8.7 ON TRUTH
The thinking being is always at the pilgrim process, in search of truth. Such a journey is the trademark of the authentic rational being. And if the voyage towards truth (Vaimai) is given up, man and woman will be reduced to sub-human-level. Therefore it is necessary for the human person to make constantly, encountering truth.
The theory of truth is an important event in the history of philosophy. Thiruvalluvar too, makes his contribution to it. For him, “whatever is good, conduces to happiness, and whatever is productive of good is truth”. He emphasizes the truth that is uttered sought, and actualized in the daily existence. Thus he defines truth as, speech from every taint of evil free, in the following Kural:
If you ask what truth means:
It is speaking words,
Which are untainted
By the least trace of evil (Kural 291).
Valluvar declares that the person of truth will be universally acclaimed and enshrined in the hearts of human being. Such a person, who renounces falsehood and lives by truth, will be the immortal being of the human kind:
He who lives by renouncing falsehood,
From his heart,
Will live enshrined
In the hearts of all mankind (Kural-294).
Confronting the thought and practices of Vedic Brahmanism, which was an alien world view, and a threat to Tamil Society (that would gain grounds in the 6th and 7th century c.e., and perpetuate destroying the Tamil social set-up, by the ideas of caste, purity, fate, rebirth...) thinks, that truthful speech is superior to the sacrifices of animals, and performing of penance. With a convinced mind, he asserts:
If one can be free from falsehood,
It’s needless for the person
To practice any sacrifices and penance (Kural 297).
External cleanliness can be procured
By a wash with water;
But internal cleanliness can be secured
Only be truth speaking (Kural 298).
He observes from his life-long experience of scrutinizing all the good things that nothing could be compared to truthfulness:
Of all good things we have scanned
With studious care,
There is nothing that can be
With truthfulness compared (Kural 300).
09. CONCLUSION
We can understand now, why Valluvar and his Kural are alive though two millennia has passed away. None would disagree that he has shaped Tamil Literature, and his Kural “one of the highest and purest expressions of human thought” has dominated the intellectual and literary landscape of the Tamil Country. Therefore it would be apt to conclude with the verse of Bharathiyar, a Tamil poet and a freedom fighter:
Tamil Nadu gave unto the world Valluvar,
And won thereby great renown.
10. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dr. A. Chidambaranatha Chettiar “Thiruvalluvar’s message to the world”. In Bhavan’s Journal, Vol.41, No.11, 1995.
Dr. S. Maharajan, Thiruvalluvar. Sahitya Academy Publication, 1982.
Dr.G.U.Pope (Trans) Thirukkural. Thanjavur: Tamil University Publication, 1988.
Prof. A. Chakravarthi, Thirukkural. Madras. The Diocesan Press, 1953.
G Robert John Kennedy
II Philosophy, 16.01.1999.
* Published in Cosmopolitan 1998-1999, Magazine of the Philosophy Section, St. Joseph’s Seminary, Mangalore, on 01.02.1999.
* Published in Observer2000-2001, Magazine of the Theology Section, St. Joseph’s Seminary, Mangalore, in series.
* Published in Vasantham 2001-2002, Magazine of the Beschi Tamil Academy, St. Joseph’s Seminary, Mangalore.
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